It is an enormous PITA that invoice macros are not available in membership renewal reminders. Both we and our members prefer direct bank transfer to payment via PayPal, but it is very difficult to match up the payments to the invoices without the invoice number. We therefore have to ask our members to log in and find the invoice number or to look up the original invoice e-mail in order to pay their (often already late) membership dues. Please make *all* invoice macros available in *every* mail template which is associated with *anything* billable!

We want this sort of behavior for open invoices (we don't use membership).

OK... Wild Apricot *needs* to be simplified. First off, the portal that members see has to be simplified. They need to be able to click on a membership level and select it, and not need to go through several screens to renew. There's much on the admin end that needs to be simplified, but I can figure that out. It's ESSENTIAL that the system is simple for members, and it's not, and we may be leaving Wild Apricot if that's not changed quickly. Members need to know right away that they're going to get an invoice, and that invoice needs to detail the members they're paying for in addition to their member level.

More than anything else I honestly spend more time writing members who are having difficulty renewing or switching membership levels. This is such a pain since the process can be different depending on each member's settings. Customers nowadays are used to much more convenient ways of processing transactions. I'm not asking to be Amazon but this process is very clunky and outdated. I'm tired of apologizing to our members because this process is so difficult.

I approve of simplifying the renewal process quarterly. E Zinner

A more streamlined renewal payment process. Not so many screens, clicks or login required.

Amen - plus as in my suggestion once they (or often us on the backend) get to the payment screen the credit card information should already be prepopulated with the person's address and phone number if already in the system

I must comment again on the issue of a simple renewal process without requiring a password.

You say "We will get to this when other higher priority items are done." For our organization this has been our HIGHEST PRIORITY since 2012 when I first made this request. We don't consider this a "bells and whistles" software enhancement. This is absolutely necessary for the financial soundness of our organization.

We get continual complaints from our board and from members. Just yesterday I got an email that said, "I tried to renew online and gave up." When someone has given up, they have to be really motivated to get out a checkbook, write a check, address an envelope and stamp it.

Dollars lost. More manual work to follow up and try to motivate membership renewal.

Process should drive software design - not the reverse.

When the invoice is sent for renewal, that's great as it has a direct payment link which doesn't require a password. Not only does it make renewing easier (especially for our members who 99% of them never sign in) but they can forward the email to another person to pay (husband, PA, whatever).

The problem is with the reminders, which just say to log in to pay - someone who didn't see or bother paying the invoice the first time isn't going to go through all that, or go back and look for the original email with the link.

So... would it be possible to automatically (or make it an option to) include the same payment link in follow up reminder emails? Perhaps with a statement or a copy of the invoice.

Create better functionality for members to renew their memberships. In every membership reminder email, please include a link to go straight to their member profile for renewal, without requiring a password. Our members do not use passwords, and there is a huge falloff rate in getting online renewals. Must get frustrated and either don't renew or they mail a check. This is costing us significant revenue and causing us much extra time to personally follow up with people!

the whole renewal process is broke; the only people who truly understand how it works are the programmers - the process needs to be designed from the perspective of someone who knows nothing about accounting, bookeeping, or computer programming and should them less than a minute to complete

We hear you, but it's not possible for us currently to make a quick change or something. We will get to this when other higher priority items are done.

The problem with auto-generating the invoices is that if the member fails to pay by the due date (or grace date if there is one), the invoice is automatically deleted from the system. No invoice should automatically be deleted - that violates almost every basic accounting and bookkeeping principle. It makes it nearly impossible to trace down any record of what happened - which is a manual process - when members start questioning why they can't pay the invoice that they swore was there one day and gone the next.

I have to say, we are really struggling with the member renewal process (for us, it is quarterly) and I don't know how much longer we'll be able to hold out against the membership. There is a very vocal minority working very hard to force us to give up this system.

This isn't as helpful as we need it to be as it doesn't provide a link back to the payment page - members have to log in, get dropped at their invoice page then don't know what to do (god forbid they read the directions we provide). They won't click the invoice link to get to the payment buttons.

The button is working well as long as they don't encounter the security certificate pop-up - that brings everything to a standstill as no one will proceed on their own. Any ideas on how to suppress that certificate pop-up?

Herding cats,

J

Thank you, kerrieanne, for helping me here! :)

See if this helps :-)

https://help.wildapricot.com/display/DOC/Membership+renewal+settings

https://help.wildapricot.com/display/DOC/Customizing+invoices+and+receipts

It takes a while to set up all the various business rules and what not, but works pretty well once its done

Admittedly, its probably not as nice if you are wanting to manage offline payments such as checks as the system does tend to focus on online capability, given that it is an online membership management system.

I have been looking everywhere for how to automatically generate a renewal invoice and stumbled upon this thread and your post. HOW do you "automatically generate invoices and email the invoices" and HOW can we do that prior to the renewal date?

We're having a TERRIBLE time getting members to generate an invoice to send in with their checks and having issues with members not understanding the multiple clicks it takes to just pay their bills.

Currently, upon login, we're dropping members on a Members Only page with a "Pay My Dues" button that directs them to the Membership Renewal page (see link below) but it triggers a security certificate message which they aren't clicking through. Or, do you have a suggestion on how to avoid the triggering of the security certificate message? Either solution would be extremely helpful. Thanks!

(https://www.sailbcyc.org/Content/Wizard/Renewal/MemberRenewal.aspx )

The only workaround I can suggest now is to not send emails before renewal date, then set the system automatically generate invoices and email the invoices on renewal day. This way members can pay for the membership - but they will not be able to update their profile, etc. without logging in.

Please make membership renewal available to members to be able to click on a link in the renewal email notice in order to renew their membership online - without having to have a password.

The system allows 5 membership renewal notices: 2 before renewal date, one on renewal date, and 2 after renewal date. Our members have no need to use a password for any other reason. So why must they have a password to renew their membership? Just allow us to include a link in those 5 reminder emails for a one-click to get to their renewal page, according to the email address where the email is being sent. That doesn't have to get them to their "profile" to change their contact info, just to allow them to renew.

We get so many comments like "well it seemed to be such a bother to go through having to get a password and then go back to your website to sign in to renew, so I thought I would just deal with it later, and then I forgot about it." We are losing money!!!! Please don't make this so hard!

OK. Too bad need to work around what seems like such an important feature of any membership system.... getting members to renew easily!!